A black ring appeared in the Pearland sky on Monday evening after Hurricane Beryl left millions without energy.
Many took to social media to report the mysterious black ring of what appeared to be smoke floating above neighborhoods as the sun set. Videos showed the O-shaped cloud drifting across an orange and pink sunset backdrop.
Many people theorized about what the ring could be, with some saying it was caused by an alien spacecraft and others joking that the ring was made of mosquitoes coming for all Texans with open windows.
“People had to resort back to using smoke signals now that nobody has power,” wrote a person as a comment to a video of the ring posted by Gryzzy’s Hood News.
The ring also baffled meteorologists. Alan Reppert, an expert, told the Chron that the only information he had about the ring was temperature, pressure, and dew points, but that didn’t tell him much about how it formed.
However, according to the Chron, the most likely explanation is that the rings result from either fireworks or an industrial fault, like an electrical transformer explosion, a common side effect of Beryl’s high-powered winds toppling power lines in Southeast Texas.
